The Vilenica International Literary Prize

**Stewart** · 01-Jun-2008, 22:46

As I recently found out about the Vilenica International Literary Prize, while looking for literary festivals around Europe, I thought that we should just go and have a thread on the prize itself because it's established, awards writers from over Europe, and its winners are interesting mix of those who have seen English translation and those who, as far as I can tell, haven't.

So the Vilenica International Literary Prize, awarded every year by the Slovene Writers' Association, is decided by an extensive jury, and announced months before the Vilenica International Literary Festival, where the winner eventually receives it.

The roll call of previous winners is:

1986 - Fulvio Tomizza (Italy)
1987 - Peter Handke (Austria)
1988 - Peter Eszterh?zy (Hungary)
1989 - Jan Sk?cel (Czech Republic)
1990 - Tomas Venclova (Lithuania)
1991 - Zbigniew Herbert (Poland)
1992 - Milan Kundera (Czech Republic)
1993 - Libuše Mon?kov? (Czech Republic/Germany)
1994 - Josip Osti (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
1995 - Adolf Muschg (Switzerland)
1996 - Adam Zagajewski (Poland)
1997 - Pavel Vilikovsky (Slovakia)
1998 - P?ter N?das (Hungary)
1999 - Erica Pedretti (Switzerland)
2000 - Slavko Mihalić (Croatia)
2001 - Jaan Kaplinski (Estonia)
2002 - Ana Blandiana (Romania)
2003 - Mirko Kovač (Croatia)
2004 - Brigitte Kronauer (Germany)
2005 - Ilma Rakusa (Switzerland) & Karl-Markus Gau? (Austria)
2006 - Miodrag Pavlović (Serbia)
2007 - Goran Stefanovski (Macedonia)
2008 - Andrzej Stasiuk (Poland)

**Stewart** · 01-Jun-2008, 22:47

Eric, can you tell us anything about the 2001 winner from Estonia, Jaan Kaplinski?

**Eric** · 04-Jun-2008, 16:36

Jaan Kaplinski. He is perhaps the most well-known Estonian poet internationally. As far as I know, he is not related to Natasha; not closely, at least.

He was born in the university city of Tartu in 1941, i.e. during the first Soviet occupation of Estonia. Six months later, when the Nazis arrived to do their bout of occupation, he could very well have ended up in Auschwitz, as Kaplinski is a Jewish name; his father was a Pole and a lecturer at Tartu University in the 1930s. From 1944, the Soviets were back, so until 1991, Kaplinski grew up, studied, worked and married in the Soviet Union.

Kaplinski studied French at school and later on structural linguistics. In the 60s and 70s he worked in a computer centre and sociological laboratory. The in the botanical gardens (maybe during a period of disfavour with the Soviet authorities).

In 1980, he was one of the signatories of the Letter of 40, signed by forty Estonian academics and intellectuals who wanted more press freedom and an element of autonomy for the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR). This was the first bold attempt by Estonians to express their dissatisfaction with Soviet reality. They sent it to Pravda, na?vely expecting it to get published. The signatories were, of course, all interviewed by the KGB, who weren't thrilled with Estonian "nationalism". Kaplinski retracted his criticisms of Soviet reality. This has caused some bad blood (he was mockingly and unkindly called "Kapitulinski"), but is understandable given the pressure that the Soviet secret police could put on people and their families. You didn't mess with the KGB.

He is married to the poet Tiia Toomet, and they have six or seven children, all grown up by now. The Kaplinskis live in Tartu. A few years ago Jaan Kaplinski was Writer in Residence at Aberystwyth University in Wales.

His early poetry was very short and cryptic. Some of it was hinting at the unfreedom of Estonia. Later on he also wrote much longer poems and many essays on cultural matters. He knows several languages, including Chinese.

Biography:

http://jaan.kaplinski.com/translations/johannes.html

Read more about him and by him at:

http://elm.einst.ee/issue/26/kaplinskis-changing-tale

http://www.estlit.ee/index.php?id=625

http://jaan.kaplinski.com/English.html

Translations (including into English):

http://www.estlit.ee/index.php?id=728

Recent photo:

http://elm.einst.ee/issue/26

**Eric** · 07-Jun-2008, 14:15

More on this year's Vilenica; pronunciation: veel-eh-NEETS-ah, rather than Vile Knicker. The list of this year's participants is at:

http://www.vilenica.si/ENG/participants.html

So Slovenia is now firmly on the literary map.

The literature in focus this September is that of Lithuania. Most of the names there are familiar to me Tomas Venclova is their grand-old-man poet. Eugenijus Ali?anka is their grand-young-man poet. Au?rinė Jonikaitė runs the service that publishes lots of information of contemporary Lithuanian literature.

I see another Estonian name on the Vilenica website for this year, that of J?ri Talvet. Talvet is a CompLit man and has written poetry himself. He has also helped translate Estonian poetry into the language of Spain called Galician (not to be confused with the adjective "Galician" describing part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of yore). This language is spoken "above Portugal", so to speak, in that bit of Spain that hangs over Portugal on the map. The language or dialect closely resembles Portuguese, so I'm told. See:

http://elm.einst.ee/issue/15/estonia...oetry-galician

Another name familiar to me is the Ukrainian Yuri Andrukhovych, whose novel Perverzion is available in English in the Unbound Europe series published by the Northwestern Press in the United States.

Under publishers and editors is Monika Sznajderman, who with her husband Andrzej Stasiuk (who won this year's Vilenica Prize; see: http://www.vilenica.si/ENG/Andrzej_Stasiuk_en.html) runs Czarne, one of the most dynamic and innovative Polish publishing houses.

John O'Brien of the Dalkey Archive Press is the publisher of the recent Verhaeghen novel Omega Minor and also of one of my translations from Estonian.

Alexandra B?chler is Czech and lives in Britain. She runs Literature Across Frontiers.